Who's Energy Lifts Audience off Seats

By Eve Zibart

The Who in concert radiate a terrifying energy: Roger Daltrey prancing in circles like a self-winding watch spring, constricting so tightly that the release leaves him still quivering; Pete Townshend shoveling music with his guitar, cannonballing into the air with his feet tucked up under him, or lunging across the stage, his instrument pointed ahead like a machine gun.

The very forcefulness of their music is nearly blinding. The power of "Tommy" lies as much in its intensity as in the quality of the writing; from the same white-hot source, a Who performance lifts and tosses the audience on the waves rushing out from the stage.

It was enough to buffet, mesmerize and completely exhaust 11,000 fans at MTSU's Murphy Center Tuesday night. On their feet at least half the time, they practically shivered with the reflection of Daltrey's outpouring of strength. The Who played without respite for nearly two hours, in the area's most grueling musical exhibition of the year — of several years, in fact — and when it was finally over, the audience screamed for a full five minutes for the encore that was never granted.

A description of a Who concert is like a beginner's exercise in phenomenology. Physically, the stage seemed set up for an average concert; drums in the center back, dominated by a gong which was decorative rather than utilitarian, microphones in the front, amplifiers to the sides and banks of speakers winging out at the ends.

Massive as the speakers were, larger than the whole set-up for recording the Charlie Daniels Band Volunteer Jam at Murphy Center a few months ago, that was only the monitor system — just for the Who to hear themselves.

The real sound system was suspended from the ceiling, three banks deep on either side. The volume was deafening (stop asking your friends to speak up and see your family physician immediately), battering, buzzing and rumbling under the skin like a small electric train.

Scaffolds of colored lights climbed up toward the ceiling, spotlights were scattered around the high reaches of the arena (two went dark) and at the back of the stage lurked three long black tubes straight out of a sci-fi flick: lasers, two green and one red, which fanned out in thin bright tubes above the audience and the transfixed Daltrey like a halo over the resurrected Tommy.

"Tommy," which started out as a "rock opera" and wound up as a cinematic hallucination orchestrated by Ken Russell, describes, as most people have probably heard by now, the rise and fall of a kind of saint. Tommy, who becomes blind, deaf and dumb after witnessing his father's accidental murder, grows to be a "Pinball Wizard," is finally cured and becomes a rock messiah. He is then overthrown and starts over, sadder but wiser, etc.

All of this takes two LPs, and includes some very spectacular music. The whole central portion of the concert consisted of a miniversion of "Tommy," over a dozen numbers long, and strong enough to have represented a performance in itself.

The Who were not through, however, and without a break even at that point, whirled into a last segment which included "My Generation" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" ("I tip my hat to the new constitution .

Daltrey's new solo album is called "Ride a Rock Horse," and he is a kind of cock horse; smooth, restless, in a beige deerskin finged vest and tight pants with a mane of curly blond hair over his shoulders and an arch to his back. He has also one of the better voices in rock music, although it is occasionally disguised as a scream.

Townshend, who no longer finds it necessary to break apart his instruments to express himself, is arguably the premier guitarist of his musical generation. He makes one guitar as full and varied as a whole raft of instruments.

In an age when many groups have seven or eight members, employing two sets of drums, multiple guitars, banks of keyboards (pianos, organs, synthesizers), horns, etc., the Who have an almost primitive structure: one guitar, one electric bass (the elegant and impassive John Entwistle) and one drummer/percussionist (the frenetic Keith Moon, in a white jumpsuit with the old Esso logo on the back). Yet they can outdo any band on the block.

Some high points: vocally, the harmony and Daltrey's lead on "Behind Blue Eyes"; physically, Townshend's "Acid Queen" on rhythm leaps, some cannonball, some slapstick types with the legs together to the knees and split below; visually, the climax of "Tommy," the peacock lasers overhead, the entire audience on its feet and the chorus repeating, "I get excitement at your feet."

Only one other complaint (besides the noise level): the audience was not initially very polite to the opening act, although it finally applauded warmly at the end.

Toots and the Maytalls from Kingston, Jamaica, were rumored to be a hot reggae group. In fact, they seem fair-to-middling, but good-hearted. "Country Roads," reggae-style, doesn't seem to appeal to Who fans, probably with good reason.

—Photo by Eve Zibart Transfixed by the pale green beams of a laser, Peter Townshend builds toward a climax at the Who concert at MTSU.

TENNESSEAN Thursday, November 27, 1975

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